Voice is the single most effective means of communication available to human beings. The vocabularies available to each of us, perhaps over multiple languages, exceed in variation and speed our written words. How something is said can be more important than the words themselves. The verbal ability to convey emotion is unparalleled in other modes. The conciseness of a simple grunt (Uh? Uhuh. Ew! Hmm. Ow!) interjected into someone else's narrative—without interrupting—can enable a speaker, especially an actor or comedian, to gauge the audience's response. Interest can provoke elaboration. Boredom, or agreement, can suggest that the conversation could be moved along more rapidly.
In a standard, two-station telephone call, all the cues of voice communication are available. This is why almost everyone has a telephone. In fact, most families have several. With the advent of cellular technology, many people carry a telephone with them everywhere, so that the power of verbal communication is available to them wherever they go.
Conference Calls
Many telephone services offer the ability to join two calls together. Tom calls Dick, puts Dick on hold, Tom calls Harry and then restores Dick—the three participants, each on their own phone, can now have a conversation together. In such a case, Tom fills the role of “organizer” and all three are “participants.”
The majority of telephone owners, however, don't undertake such three-way calls. The specific sequence of keypad or switchhook presses is forgotten when rarely used, and the likelihood that an error in the sequence hangs up on someone causes most people to forego the value of three-way calling. The role of organizer is not popular, and it gets worse.
Conference calling services go beyond three-way calling, though three-way calling (except on a multi-line telephone) is just a special case of conference calling. Conference calling services allow three or more people to participate in a single call. Systems to provide conference calling are many, and well known to those skilled in the art. Such systems come in many varieties, and provide conference services over and between different telephone and network systems.
Note that, in general, it is not a requirement that an organizer also is a participant, but in the case of three-way calling, above, it is a requirement.
Bovo et al., in U.S. Pat. No. 4,076,966 teaches a basic implementation for multi-way calling. Each call participant hears the all the other participants' voices added together. The adding together is performed by a special, central conference circuit. The conference circuit receives all of the participants' voices separately. For each individual participant, the circuit adds together the voices of all the other participants, and sends that composite signal. Thus, what Tom hears is (Dick+Harry), and what Dick hears is (Tom+Harry), etc. Another circuit having similar effect is taught by Epps in U.S. Pat. No. 5,054,021.
In a switched packet network, data packets representing the voice of each of the other participants is sent directly to a participant's station. This is shown by Steagall et al., in U.S. Pat. No. 5,127,001. The packets from a given participant are sorted into an allocated bin. At any given moment, the next packet from each of the bins is decompressed, the voice signals from each of the other participants is added together locally, and played to the local participant. Such a technique can be used over the Internet.
In U.S. Pat. No. 6,275,575, Wu teaches that a conference call can take place across dissimilar platforms: cellular telephones, standard telephones, and the Internet.
Because of cost and complexity, three-way calling and conference calling are most commonly found in the business arena. Having three or more people talking together over the telephone can save much of the time and expense otherwise needed to transport and gather those people for a meeting. These savings are significant enough that special equipment may be purchased. An assistant, often having nothing to do with the meeting, is designated to organize the conference call. In some systems, an operator is also needed.
Many ways are known to manage the arrangement and initiation of a conference call.
According to Little, in U.S. Pat. No. 4,455,455, an organizer would schedule a conference through an operator. The operator provides the commands that will configure a switch to form the conference call at the appointed time. The participants are provided in advance with a special access number to dial, and a password number. At the appointed time, each of the participants is responsible for dialing into the switch using the access number, and then providing the password to join the conference call.
McFarland et al., in U.S. Pat. No. 5,408,526, suggests that the organizer of the conference call supply the count of participants will be in the conference call, a phone number for each, and the time and duration of the conference call. Such information is necessary to permit the conference system to find an effective, efficient allocation of conference call circuits. Ideally, at the time of the conference, each of the participants is connected. Fitser et al., in U.S. Pat. No. 5,631,904 is less formal. Given the list of participants' numbers, the conference circuit simply calls each participant. They can even be charged for the call!
Wu's system, from U.S. Pat. No. 6,275,575, takes similar information, but invites the participants to join a future conference call. The organizer can view the status of those invitations, whether accepted, declined, or outstanding. The invitation may be via pager, email, or WAP enabled cellular telephone. The responses to the query are made available to the organizer, and at the appointed time, each of the participants is called. Further, Wu allows any or all of the organizer and participants to be on cellular telephones, though ideally, the organizer uses a personal computer connected to the Internet.
Sometime the role of organizer is sufficiently complex as to fall to more than one person, for instance when groups of participants from each of two companies are required. For such circumstances, says Bales et al. in U.S. Pat. No. 5,373,549, distinct organizers each form their own conference call and gather their own participants. Then, the two conference calls are merged into a single conference call. The organizers retain control over their original participants, and either organizer can re-divide the conference call into its original constituent conference calls. Riddle, in U.S. Pat. No. 5,973,724 teaches an alternative method, which emphasizes multimedia teleconferences over a network.
Other mechanisms have been provided for joining a conference call.
Barber et al., in U.S. Pat. No. 6,088,435, accepts a request for a conference call related to a topic of interest to the requester. If a conference call is already in progress on that topic, the requester becomes a participant in that conference call. If no conference call is in progress on that topic, a database is examined to find someone whose personal profile (e.g. gender, address, telephone number, interests, access to video phone, etc.) suggests that they would be interested. If such a profile is found, and is enabled, a call is automatically placed to the person found. This initiates a conference call tagged with that topic of interest is initiated with the original requester and the person selected from the database as the initial participants.
Walker et al., in a series of US patents (U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,978,467; 6,125,178; 6,314,178) shows that callers waiting in queue for a service agent, can be connected to each other to see if among themselves they can handle their own problems. The callers retain their original place in queue for when an agent becomes available.
In U.S. Pat. No. 6,175,619, Desimone describes a system to allow Internet an chat room participants to initiate a conference call and invite other of the chat room's participants to become participants in the conference call. Participation in the conference call does not require the participants to relinquish their anonymity.
Conference Call Etiquette
When a conference call is in progress, there are problems that do not arise in ordinary face-to-face conversation.
In face-to-face conversation, it is usually apparent how many participants are in a room, and when a participant leaves the room. Similarly, one can usually tell who is presently speaking. However, such is not necessarily the case in a conference call. To remedy this, Penzias, in U.S. Pat. No. 5,450,481, teaches a system having a conference tracker at each participating station. The tracker employs a series of audio pulses to uniquely indicate its presence and status (e.g. speaking or silent) to each of the other trackers. In this way, Penzias' system can indicate how many and which participants are connected, and which participants are presently speaking.
In U.S. Pat. No. 6,304,648, Chang teaches a system wherein the voice of a speaking participant causes a signal to be generated which displays the identity of the speaking participant on a web site used by the organizer to originate the conference call. The speaker's identity can be represented by video, a photo, or merely the speaker's name.
In face-to-face conversation, it is sometimes the case that environmental background noise makes conversation difficult. Environments where this is likely to occur include sporting events, rock concerts, and busy restaurants. In a conference call, not only are the voices of the participants added together, but also each of the participant's environmental background noises. Thus, a participant in a busy restaurant brings to the conference call the background noise of a busy restaurant. A participant using a cellular telephone on the freeway will bring traffic and wind noises.
A similar situation can occur if a participant puts the conference call on hold, perhaps to take a priority call. Many business telephone systems feature “delightful music on hold,” which now dominates the conference until the participant returns. Foldare et al., in U.S. Pat. No. 6,353,662 teaches how this can be mitigated by a smarter music-on-hold system. Light et al., in U.S. Pat. No. 6,349,136 teaches that the “controller,” a specially authorized participant (who is perhaps the organizer), can enter a code and be isolated from the conference. Once isolated, the controller can examine in sequence the signal coming from each participant. When one is found having excessive noise, the controller can enter another code and the noisy participant is dropped from the conference call. In another patent, U.S. Pat. No. 5,724,416, Foldare et al. teach that a participant having an overly loud environment can use a touch-tone key to stimulate the conference call circuit to balance the audio levels.
Even low levels of background noise can, when summed over many participants, result in a disruptive amount of noise. Addressing this issue, Klose et al., in U.S. Pat. No. 4,809,262 has the conference call circuit evaluate the signal from each participant. If the signal is low, the participant is presumed to not be speaking and the signal is muted. Thus, background noise from non-speaking participants is eliminated. An alternative method used in wireless communications is presented in U.S. Pat. No. 5,881,053, where Kimball encodes each participant's voice. When a participant is not speaking, the encoding takes place at a drastically reduced bandwidth. The system provides maximum fidelity to the current speaking participant, however. Gitlin et al., in U.S. Pat. No. 5,995,827 allows a wireless telephone to mute itself when the participant stops speaking.
In face-to-face conversation, two participants can whisper privately between themselves while remaining aware of the collective conversation. Epps, in U.S. Pat. No. 5,034,947 provides a circuit for a similar effect during a conference call (but no user interface for accessing the effect). Though not quite analogous to whispering, Bradshaw, Jr., in U.S. Pat. No. 6,236,654, allows the “controller” participant to break a conference call into sub-conferences, and specifically, to have a private conversation with one of the other participants.
Thus, many of the problems specific to conference calling have had solutions presented. However, there remain other problems specific to conference calls. Further, conference calls exhibit problems that are present in ordinary, face-to-face conversation.
In large, face-to-face gatherings, it is often difficult to maintain a single thread of conversation. Let alone those whispering: Arguments and shouting matches can break out. In a conference call, especially when lacking visual cues and suffering a significant fraction of a second of latency, talking over someone and stepping on their sentence is common. Yet the rigors of military radio communication (terminating each completed utterance with “Over”) or the formality of Robert's Rules of Order (“the chair recognizes Harry”) are unlikely to be adopted. As a result, it is a frequent occurrence, whether accidental or deliberate, that multiple participants will be talking simultaneously.
In some face-to-face meetings, the rules limit individual speakers to a maximum speaking time. For example, this is common practice in public hearings or annual stockholders meetings. Enforcing such limits, even in conference calls, is the domain of the moderator. Conference call systems do not have an automated mechanism for this.
It is also the case, in face-to-face conversation, that there are some individuals with whom one would prefer not to speak. Perhaps it is because one dislikes the way they express themselves, or because they are rude. In a business context, it may not be appropriate to avoid a conference call because of a participant. However, in a recreational context, one may wish to avoid joining conference calls having certain participants. Conversely, one may prefer to join conference calls have certain participants, e.g. your friends.
There exists a corollary problem. In a conversation where one discovers that a participant is distasteful, one often wonders, “Who invited you?” It may be the case that, as a participant, one finds certain organizers unsuited to the role. Beyond knowing who are the participants in a conference call, it would be useful to determine which organizer included each of them. For the opposite reason, information concerning a particular, excellent participant would allow the discovery of excellent organizers.
It is an additional attribute of a face-to-face conversation that if some participant begins to make injurious remarks, that participant can be pressured by peers to apologize, and potentially served with a lawsuit if the remarks were libelous. In a conference call, particularly one where the participants are anonymous, though immediate peer pressure is available, the threat of legal action is absent. It is desirable for claims of libelous or otherwise unsavory statements to be researchable by appropriate authorities, so that the controls imposed by the potentiality of legal action is restored.
Though rare in a business context, it occurs at certain social or recreational events, such as a masquerade ball, that face-to-face conversations take place, and yet the speakers are mutually unaware of each other's identity. In a face-to-face masquerade conversation, a participant is wearing a mask or costume appropriate to the event, and may further undertake to disguise their voice. In a less extreme example, sports fans seated near each other at a game or in a bar may converse to great extent, and yet not exchange any personal information beyond their first names. They are comfortable with the relative anonymity that being one of many thousands of fans affords (even if other participants could pick them out of a hypothetical line-up).
Often, at a party or in a bar, while engaged in a face-to-face conversation, one attempts—without interrupting or leaving the conversation—to attract the attention of a friend and induce them to join. Typically, this is performed with a beckoning wave of the hand, a tipping up of the head, or a gesture with the eyebrows (depending on the degree of subtlety required.) The same informality and subtlety is not available in conference calls. Invitations are the domain of the organizer, who is required to enter particular modes in order to gather new participants. These modes prevent the organizer from remaining as a participant in the conference call for the duration of his organizational activities. In addition, the formality of such an invitation, whether before or during a conference call, does not admit to extension by second or higher degree invitees (i.e. participants invited by participants invited by the organizer). In a face-to-face meeting, one can direct an invitee to listen, but not speak. Existing conference call mechanisms treat participants as having equal speaking and listening capabilities—existing systems do not enforce such constraints on participants.
Similarly, in face-to-face conversations, gestures, nods, and winks, in addition to whispering, are modes of communication with individual other participants which do not interrupt the flow of conversation in the overall conference call. Present conference call systems do not admit analogous back channels of communication, with the exception of whispering, described above.
In a large gathering, it is possible to “keep your ears open.” In this state, an individual participating in one face-to-face conversation pays fractional attention to other conversations of interest. If one of the other conversations takes a twist of overriding interest, participation is transferred to the other, more interesting conversation. Such monitoring of multiple conversations is not available to conference call participants, outside of having multiple telephones.
Another form of social conversation, past its heyday, was popularized in United States, during the 1970s' consumer electronics boom in Citizen Band radios (CBs). Many conversational idiosyncrasies evolved around the 40 channel, two-way, moderate range, no-license-required radios. Among CBers, as participants were called, there was a monitoring mode called “keeping your ears on.” In this mode, a CBer would monitor a single channel and waiting for another CBer to appear. Some CB radios had scanners, which would poll through some, or all 40, channels looking for activity. By tradition, certain channels tended toward certain subjects. For instance, channel 9 was reserved for emergencies. A CBer newly arriving on a channel would himself by saying, “Breaker, breaker.” Present conference call systems do not offer any analogous behavior for recreational use.
One flaw in CB communication is that multiple, simultaneous transmissions corrupt each other. Rather than hearing two simultaneous voices, a receiver detect one or the other (typically the stronger signal), or garbage, if the two signals corrupt each other.
Another valuable artifact of CB communication is due to its limited range. Because CB radio communication is typically limited to a few dozen or so miles, parties engaging in conversation share geographic proximity. By virtue of that fact, proximity specific questions such as “Where is a good place to eat?” or “How is traffic?” more naturally find parties having pertinent opinions or information. Conference call systems do not offer a mechanism for constraining geographic location of participants.
An essential attribute of CB radio is that its operation is non-commercial. While a CB station can be used in the pursuit of a business, one cannot receive income for the use of CB, nor can a CB be used to transmit entertainment or other broadcast programming. A conference call, on the other hand, is not subject to such constraints.
Summary of Needs Unsatisfied by Prior Art
Thus, in spite of the amazing array of conference call capabilities available to telephone and cellular telephone users, there remain unsatisfied needs.
During a conference call, there exists a need for a method to allow a speaker to be heard clearly by all other participants, and yet still permit those other participants to make comments and utter their verbal reactions to be heard by all participants, including the speaker.
In a conference call, there is a need for a way to designate a participant as the speaker, and to pass such designation to subsequent participants.
Further, a mechanism that can be employed to limit the time each speaker is permitted is needed. Such a mechanism should provide a clear status display at least to the current and subsequent speaker.
A way is needed for a participant to designate other individual participants as undesirable, and subsequently to avoid joining, or at least be forewarned before joining, a conference call having a participant so designated.
Similarly, a technique is needed for a participant to designate other individual participants as desirable, and subsequently to be notified, when searching for a conference call, of the presence of a participant so designated.
Further, in a conference call having one or more organizers, or in which an invitation mechanism has led a particular participant to join, a technique is needed which will allow other participants to determine which organizer(s) or other mechanism provided an invitation for that particular participant.
Further, in conference calls, there is need for a way to provide peer pressure, up to and including the force of law, to enforce civility.
In a conference call, where the participants' identities are known to the conference calling system, a way is needed to maintain privacy and yet still provide each participant with an awareness of the other participants, including the speaker, via an alias. In a system employing such an alias, there is a need for the alias to have a public part, analogous to a mask or costume, which provides a degree of anonymity, but is distinguishable within a conference call from other participants using their respective aliases. In addition, it is desirable for an alias to have a private part, which may include the participant's true identity. Whether a participant is represented by the public part (mask) or private part (true identity) is selectable by that participant. It is further needed to enable a participant having an alias to specify which other participants may view the private part (true identity) of the alias. There is also a need for a participant to have multiple public aliases, which may be selected manually or automatically by context. A concomitant need is for a PC based design tool, which will allow a user to create or edit an alias.
In addition to the alias used to maintain privacy, there is also a need to provide a disguise for the voice of a participant. Such a disguise may optionally be dropped for those other participants begin designated as having access to the alias' private part.
Because of the difficulty of arranging conference calls and adding participants during one, there exists a need for a simple way to invite someone to join an upcoming or ongoing conference call. Further, there is a need for the ability for invited participants to invite additional participants is needed, including the ability to invite additional participants. Still further, an invitation mechanism that invites participants, but limits them as observers, or other alternative mode to full participation.
Further, a back channel of communication between specific participants, which does not interrupt the conference call, is needed. Such a back channel might include manipulation of the alias one directs toward a particular participant, so as to represent meaningful expressions.
There is a need for conference call technology to emulate communication format provided by CB channels. When joining a conference call representative of a CB channel, and that conference call having no designated speaker, the effect of a “breaker” message is desired to notify monitoring participants of a new participant's arrival. There is a need for a way to manage the problems of multiple participants trying to speak at once. There is a further need to allow a participant to designate those one or more conference calls to be monitored, even when participating in a particular conference call.
Additionally, there is a need to constrain participation in a conference call to participants having geographic proximity to some location. It can be the case that the location for determining proximity is the locus of the participants' locations. Alternatively, the location for determining proximity may be fixed, e.g. a stadium or concert. The constraint of geographical proximity is needed to promote the development of geographically desirable friendships. Further, such a constraint is needed to limiting participation to those likely to benefit from an ad hoc community generated by the conference call regarding an event or location (e.g. by promoting interchange of geographically local information such as traffic conditions, shortest queues, best restaurants, open party locations, etc.)
There is lastly a need for topic-based conference call programs. Such calls might be continuously on-going, awaiting participants (e.g. a channel based on a particular sports team), they could be pre-scheduled and promoted (e.g. a panel discussion, post-game discussion group, or a book club), or they might be ad hoc. In some cases, such conference calls would need to be available exclusively to subscribing participants.
The present invention satisfies these and other needs and provides further related advantages.